Running off Empty
by Trailing Ashes
Summary: Amber. I'm so sorry. I know I was only trying to save you.... I never meant to kill him in the process..." Brain damaged House; spoilers for after Wilson's Heart
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Running off Empty

**Authors Notes:** I'm hoping to make this a good three or four part sequel that starts with Wilson's feelings after he had House take that risky operation to remember what happened to Amber, only in an alternate reality in which House has severe brain damage from the procedure--leaving Wilson to eventually care for him while grieving Amber too. I wanted to make this actually a lot longer, but I'm writing on another House project I'm more distracted on and I want to write it in this strange perspective all the way through. Anyways, feedback would be awesome--keeping in mind generally my main goal is to capture Wilson and House's realistic relationship and personalities. Hopefully more chapters to come. :)

* * *

It wasn't meant to be like this.

But what could you do.

What could _I_ _do_.

The friend that was always there.

The man that was _always there._

I wanted it to work

I wanted it to save her

I WANTED to touch her, to feel her, to talk to her again--just please, god see her--

If only if only--there was nothing else to be done...

...I had to do it

Listen to me. I had to do it

I had to see it through

"Before you warm her up...you said...you.... wanted to try deep brain stimulation."

It had to be done--listen to me, House. You have to do this. We have to save Amber.

"...But there's no reason, we know the symptom...we know what I saw."

"But what if...it's not the rash. What if you noticed the rash in the ambulance or when we put her on by-pass. What if there is still something else...stuck inside your head."

Piercing blue eyes staring back into mine. And I knew. I _knew_ just like you did, the risks, the question. Before you opened your mouth, exhausted features and compelling gaze.

"You think I should risk my life...to save Amber's."

"......." I nod. "Yes."

And after a moment. Long and hard, I see it in your eyes still; so do you.

It was--necessary.

Once in my life I needed.

I needed

Her.

Amber. I was sure. I was so sure. I could almost touch it.

Very thoughts of her leaving left me in anguish, grasping, groping and digging inside me

Beyond help, beyond risk or hope

Her face, her body, her laugh--

Deep and unbred anger and guilt

House.

House save me.

Please. Please just once.

Save me.

".....Yes."

Just once give me this, House. Give me this. Please.

And--still. Still...

I knew you would. Without question, without doubt.

From the second you looked back at me. Your gaze finding, fixing on my own. Your words unspoken, but I can hear them. I mean...I still can. In every moment of these days.

Just as you nod your head and grab your cane. No words. No nothing except---now.

You could be dead. You could be dead right now.

But back then and even now somehow you were more important to me than anyone.

If you die, does this mean forever I'll never be able to let go, look back, ever say sorry? Do I lose you both?

You walk beside me; and I can smell the exhaustion; the draining of life right out of you

We could read each other, House--always like a game you and I played. Read every moment for what it was and what it wasn't.

I've never seen you this exhausted before

I've never seen you this broken

Words won't mean anything now not for either of us

Now that you're leaving your life for Ambers

For me

For us.

Chase objects, but he does what you say in a nod and a concerned look. Cuddy objects, but it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does.

You'll do it. And I'll watch as you fade away.

Desperate and alone and my mine reaching; grasping towards Amber's body...

Amber.

Amber...

The one relationship I've ever had outside of House that meant anything

The one thing I don't want to lose

Besides you.

_"HE'S SEIZING! Get him out of there--!"_


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **Running Off Empty

**Chapter:** 2

**Summary: "**Amber. I'm so sorry. I know I was only trying to save you....but I never meant to kill him in the process..." (Brain damaged House; spoilers for after Wilson's Heart)

**Authors Notes:** Each chapter is going to be pretty short, but there will be many of them. Please tell me if this line of writing ever gets boring or if you have any ideas on where I should take this/critique you'd like to offer. I know I've been slow and for that I am sorry, but I do hope you guys like this regardless. I'll keep updating hopefully, and definately a good shout out to those fanfiction writers who are still working and trying to write decent and well developed fanfics. :) I give kudos to you all and a special thank you for all the great reading you've given and writing you've all inspired.

* * *

A lonely figure against a white stark room, the faces of flashing colleagues and moments seem to be a blur of motion and time. I can't see anything through the blurred tears and the flower like smell of the shoulder I'm crying against. While standing there, Cuddy's arms embracing me while I cry--all I can think about is how much I messed up. How much I screwed things up for her.

How much I was at fault.

How this was my fault.

I don't want to remember but I cried with her that night, I held her when she died.

Her eyes still haunting me with that beautiful smile and brilliant voice.

I know deep inside I would never let her go; her warmth still...leaving me dead inside. It should have been more but while standing in front of your hospital room House, all I could think of was the death I had caused. The one on the bus wasn't me. It was her.

I don't think I can forgive myself.

Haha...I don't think I can forgive _you_. All of it is so meaningless now.

The motion of other nurses, the stark white room you yourself lay in meant nothing to me. It all just meant nothing. I wanted no part of any of this.

I don't want to think about the moments that she faded from me, I don't want to pause. She was my world. She was my life.

I don't think you can understand what that meant. There was nothing else. I don't think the pain would ever go away. And begining to cope with it? Begining to let it go? I couldn't even imagine. Her breath still felt like it was right against mine, still like she was breathing beside me. I don't know if I can face you, House.

Nothing else makes sense--nothing else _matters_. I wish I could say otherwise, wish things would make sense. Leaving you behind as you open your eyes to the world--I only see the flicker of blue from deep, exhausted eyes while turning away from it all. I can't look at you right now, House.

I can't look at...myself right now.

The streets were dark. And the night longer than anything in the world. Not something you can understand. Not something even I can wrap my head around.

I'd rationalize all sorts of things, but walking to my car I was really just in a daze.

At the time...I'd thought that by going home maybe I could get away from it all. Amber. Amber's face. Yours. The crash, the images that run over and over into my brain like a nightmare.

In reality I know I was just going on autopilot, unsure of where to go. I think I'd left everything on that bed in that white room. And when midnight came around, wandering around like I was lost, finding myself back at my apartment with nothing but a dazed feeling and an empty mind; I realized that in some ways I was still back there.

It was like stepping into another world. The apartment still exactly the same.

Bed sheets still haunted with her smell, her feel. The apartment no different than when I left it the other day, mocking and all so wrong. While I fell into bed, all of it feeling so wrong, I lay there. I fell and I just lay there.

As...if maybe she would just walk right back in.

As if I thought it could be done. Maybe I was wrong, it was all a dream, I was just crazy and she'd be there waking me up. Smiling and hugging close to me. Her warmth. Her life. Amber.

I know if you had been there. I know if you had been a different man you would have been glad to share a dose of reality, House, but.

Then. Then I couldn't take it all. Reaching over to find a note at the side of my bed.

_Off to pick out House. Be back later. ~_

It was so much--too much to bare. And though I wanted to hate you. I wanted to blame you, I couldn't. All of it coming back to me, all so much. So much. I couldn't take any of it. Breaking down against the pillows of the bed.

The one thing keeping me grounded to the truth of her absence, the note folded in my hands.

All of it felt so wrong and crazy; so out of control. I didn't think I'd make it that night. All alone, my best friend lying in a hospital bed so far away it could've been in another world.

I knew then you were going to be okay, I knew then that things would never be the same and that we'd never rebuild anything without her. I think even more I didn't want things to ever go back to normal, I wanted things to keep changing and keep life from being so goddman hectic and insane. None of it made sense. I needed sense. I needed _her_.

But she'd never be there. And she'd never be there ever again.

All I found myself doing was crying and realizing with painful clarity...just what I'd done all along. To her.

...It was only an hour or so, breaking down into those bed sheets did I get the call.

The hospital checking back in I'd figured but at the sound of Cuddy's voice, I knew it was so much more.

And lying against that bed, one hand against the phone--my eyes staring off into nothing I heard the news. So clear it rang for hours in my head. Her voice filled with fear and pain, speaking so gently but for all it mattered House, she could have shouted.

"House....has brain damage, Wilson. I...I'm so sorry."


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **Running Off Empty

**Chapter:** 3

**Summary: "**Amber. I'm so sorry. I know I was only trying to save you....but I never meant to kill him in the process..." (Brain damaged House; spoilers for after Wilson's Heart)

* * *

It's late...

Damn it I don't want to be here. Why am I here. To see you...?

Don't make me laugh.

I feel miserable. And despite the looks I get; unshaven and generally a mess I feel angry. Everything feels off balance while I walk.

Sometimes--especially these times like this I wish I could hit pause, maybe rewind a few steps. It sounds beautiful, to be able to do that. Magical even.

So many times in my life I've felt like this and somehow it always feels like they're all because of just one moment. A phone call, a mistake, one moment in time that keeps my moving on this same path. Always so sick of this path, these irrational, reckless judgements I'd make. Every selfish move left with someone dead or dying.

I can't explain to you how sick I am of this path, especially that night, House.

The night itself; spent doing nothing but staring at an empty window wishing for the worst on myself, the ways I'd been trying to put away lost memories and finding the meaningful moments I couldn't even seem to see.

I admit.

I was angry at you. At the whole world. At god himself if he could hear me. Yelling at nothing from inside my apartment, rubbing my hands against my face. It was like I was trying to wipe it all clean from my mind, a rewind button on the mess I'd made.

I might have been mad for this whole time, but here I was two days later. And yes, while at home; during the morning and night I sometimes caught her reflection looking back at me, wishing me a good bye or staring at me with those intensely beautiful eyes of hers. Asking me questions I--had no answers to...

All some sort of lie I wished to tell myself, a prayer I'd send to her for forgiveness. Or maybe understanding.

Condemned from god to suffer alone. And watch as now my best friend fades from me.

Damn cruel the world is we live in. How unbelievably cruel you are, House. To even let this all happen.

You don't understand how much this doesn't work or make sense, all of it so crazy and wrong. I thought of only that these last two days. All of it just a step away from insanity. I think the news of your condition only made it all the more real for me, stepping back into the hospital where a wave of smells and noises. Flashing all around me in speeding motions and memories; it was like for a moment everything really was stuck on pause.

Instances, small flickers of memory sent with flickers of recognition against my brain. A small smile there, a wave, a kiss from her.

And then you standing at the elevator with a few tickets for a movie I didn't care about or a monster truck show I'd be dying to see.

I could feel her in the walls. Watching me. Loving but blaming me.

And even you there, with every step I took.

Walking alone to your room after Amber's death was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. Not sure what to expect. I didn't want to face you now. I didn't want to face anything now that she was gone. My head wasn't on right and neither were my thoughts, everything was so the same and that in itself was torture. It shouldn't be the same.

Everything should be different.

I felt like the walls should unhindge and the world should fall into destruction--but everyone was exactly the same...

Hah...if anything, I wished I'd just dissappear. That was the real wish I had.

Over all it all pressured against me, pressing my mind into oblivion. A thousand thoughts melted into one feeling of solid, consistant numbness.

Getting to your room was difficult, maybe not the trip itself--but the thoughts all along the way. The things I'd say, things I'd see when I got there and the anger that filled me.

When Cuddy called me she'd told me not to come right away if I didn't want.

It had been all of two days since the call she'd given me, waiting for updates that never came. And...I'm not stupid, House. Of all the things I am right now, that isn't one of them...

I'd kind of hoped you'd be okay without me. Stepping through the halls, passed the elevator. But then the only reason Cuddy wouldn't call me during those two days and the thoughts of mine were melted into a stream of dread leading down to more dread, was the fact you weren't any better.

That you weren't getting any better at all.

The room itself...wasn't too hard to find. But it was hell passing through a sea of hospital staff, most of whom I knew on some level. Casting worried or pittying glances down my back; my head bowed to the floor.

Reaching it, my hand found the sliding glass door. I caught sight of you instantly. My gaze holding your shadowed figure--hospital gown and covers, a doctor I could recognize as being in another department here at your side. You didn't look at him--gaze a distant far off glaze in the other direction. The blue eyes were the first things I saw. Shrowded in the dim lights of the hospital room.

I had to go in. But then, I felt sick. Mingled with my anger, guilt and pain. Staring at you through that small glass door; reflections of my own torn gaze and exhausted form staring back at me. I was shaking so bad that by the time I really did open the glass door I had to pocket my hands looking up to the doctor who looked right back.

He stood to his feet, a weary but sympathetic smile at his face; reaching a hand out in my direction.

On any other circumstance I'm sure I would've instinctively reached to grab it, but my mind didn't process fast enough to reach out and accept. It...was only by the time he'd hesitantly slid his hand back to his pocket did I realize that I probably should've taken the offered hand.

"Dr. Wilson. It's a pleasure to meet you again. I only wish it was under different circumstances..."

I nod my response, but can't really give a smile. There should be some normalcy hearing these things from a colleague.

But I guess in reality everything was numb on some level and while I stood, the man kept talking almost as if I wasn't there at all. Staring off in the direction of my friend, of you, House--but your gaze was elsewhere. Almost as if we weren't here to begin with.

"I'm afraid House...suffered from a bad siezure. During the Deep Brain Stimulation. The condition he was in, effect of the siezure...he should never have gone through with it. Your friend is lucky to be alive, Dr. Wilson."

I heard him. But I never wanted to see you this way.

I never wanted to be here.

All of it flashing so vividly in my mind.

So...hauntingly real, ghosts digging deeper and deeper into my conscience, deeper into my chest like someone driving in a spike. I felt my grip tightened against my pockets, nothing but pain eminating from my mind. Gaze set on you whiletThe man's words became a whisper in comparison to the image of your figure, your bright, piercing blue eyes so empty now.

"There are...always treatment options. Things we can, of course, try..."

The doctor carries on as if I'm really listening. And...finally for the first time since the doctor started, his face nameless and unimportant right now; I speak up.

"So...he won't recover."

His silence confirms all of this...just bringing it home. Too clearly and too exhausted I stand there, waiting for the rest of it. Even as it comes,the doctor going onto explain how there was hope. Options. And...how I was the beneficiary; every medical decision that you were unable to make was legally to be done by me. You had already set it all up before even undergoing most of these crazy stunts. In fact from what I hear, it was years ago.

Through all of it, I feel heavy. Exhausted and guilt ridden; stabbing deep against my chest.

By the time I move to your bed side, slipping into the seat beside you I find I don't care what else is being said by the doctor. I don't need to hear the rest. Something about a more long term ward, decisions to be made; other things I just...couldn't focus on.

Other things I couldn't figure out in all of this.

Before he finishes the man realizes what kind of space I need. A skill many doctors have; I myself have sensed throughout dozens and dozens of breaking news on cancer and the options available. I shut my eyes as the doctor promptly, discretely leaves. Promising to be back later and I know he will be. His job is just this after all...

All of it. I can't really think, my mind buzzing with images and memories; focused so intently on you. The man with the genius; nothing but his brain and a nack for finding whatever truth he could. Your eyes so different while my hand gently slips against yours.

While sitting there...I can't seem to hold it back any longer. I find myself breaking down right there. Gasping slightly while cursing against my breath; tears hot and everything numb. I hold your hand tightly in my own; the warmth getting no comfort, nothing but pain.

"House..."

Choking out your name, falling deeper and deeper into this crevasse I'd made. The feelings and frustrations mingling into one, giving it another try as I say your name again; a desperate attempt at explaining. A horribly desperate, horribly heart wrenching attempt.

Bringing your hand to my chin--You have no idea how much I wanted to push pause then and there, sobbing against your hand like that. Shoulders shaking while I tried to bite it all down.

"I-I-I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry---House. H-House..."

There was nothing else to be said. Crying hard into your hand; my head bowed against it as I gripped tightly. Shaking. I didn't want to let go of any of this, the images all too clear at my mind's call. The brain recalling the worst things at the worst times--my own personal hell. Amber's eyes somehow focused on with your own--I could feel them against my head. Staring at me as if from hell, accusing and filled with so much pain. Your last words to me ringing over and over as I cried.

_"You want me to risk my life...to save Amber's...?"_

Sitting there breaking all at once; a grown man in the middle of a hospital room who had just lost everything.

I'd been so sure this would work.

So sure this would _save_ her.

So sure if I'd just take one risk, one small step to bring her back...

You would be okay, I was just asking you one thing. One thing. You owed it to me--the world. Owed it to me.

"I-I-I'm so sorry..."

I gasped, tears coming free.

I don't remember much of the rest. All of it going in turns of one second to the next, breaking like that. Honestly, all I can remember thinking was how much it hurt. How much all of it hurt while I sat at your side, how eventually I broke down completely.

For a while, somewhere in between I was sure that you'd put your free hand against the top of my head. The warmth still sort of filling me, an act of a man who may not be all there--but who, to a small extent; understood. An act from you.

But. When I woke up the next morning I was so sure it had all been a dream.

Forgiveness wouldn't come easy.

And it wasn't swift.

God only had hell for the guys like me, fools who stray off the path to fill their selfish, reckless needs. I didn't want to ever let go of that, or all the things I'd done to you--or to her...

I couldn't take it...

And I couldn't take all of this.

Falling asleep at your side in a dazed nightmare of torment and flame. Hoping of nothing but to wake up, and find all of this to be a horrible, twisted dream we'd both landed in. One where we could go back out and joke and laugh, make bad puns and trade off stories of every day life. Where I could date Amber and we could all fight like children on the way to school.

I hadn't realized until then just how perfect my life had been. And just how much I had lost.


End file.
